Aleon Craft, performing on the DJBooth.net showcase on Friday, Oct 7th, makes announces an amazing new project in the works...
Mothership: The Decatur Connection is a collaborative project between funk legend, George Clinton, and creative, hip-hop/funk artist, Aleon Craft. Mothership: The Decatur Connection is a musical creation consisting of elements from: Aleon Craft’s Mothership Decatur, The Parliament’s catalog - including, Mothership Connection - and original recordings from both Aleon Craft and George Clinton. Paul Forrest, SMKA-affiliate, is the chief producer behind Mothership: The Decatur Connection and was tasked with taking all of the pieces from Craft and Clinton and creating something unique that reflected their style and vision. Mothership: The Decatur Connection is an exciting mash-up project combining two very different artists, both with an exceptional creative process. The project is presented by SMKA & Funkprobosci.com and is scheduled to be released in 2011.
Websites: SMKA x Funkprobosci
Aleon Craft x George Clinton - "Donkey Kong"
Aleon Craft - Donkey Kong (Mothership: The Decatur Connection) by SMKA
“P-Funk was basically just a giant collective of musicians with rotating membership, so this project feels perfectly natural to me,” say Paul Forrest. “It’s like Craft has just gone back in time and linked up with George, and company, on the Mothership Connection to make a sick album. There are times when the Mothership Decatur choruses’ sounds so much like P-Funk vocals that I’d forget I was listening to a mashup.”
Aleon Craft has always been captivated with, and heavily influenced by, George Clinton & Parliament. Craft and Clinton first meet in 2005 during a time when Aleon Craft was better known as Big Marc of Da Backwudz. Clinton recorded a verse on Wood Work, the southern duo’s debut album released by Dallas Austin’s Rawdy Records. "I was raised, respecting the funk, the whole funk, nothing but the funk,” Craft says. “So it was only right that the Funk Gods aligned me and George, again, to create this project. The funk is still alive, and we will never let it die..."
Craft’s 2011 project, Mothership Decatur, paid homage to Parliament’s 1967 release, Mothership Connection, fusing southern hip-hop and funk into his own brand of music called, Solar-Hop. After reaching out to Clinton, and explaining his desire to create a mashup project between Mothership Decatur & Mothership Connection, Aleon Craft learned more about the long history of legal battles involving copyright infringement and publishing embezzlement that George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic have relentlessly fought throughout the year. P-Funk, one of the most sampled groups in history, has amazingly lost most of the profits generated from sampling due to copyright (sample) trolls and questionable legal representatives. After discussing the project in more detail both artists felt that this would be a perfect opportunity to create a unique project, and possibly help P-Funk and hundreds of other funk artists in their constant fight with copyright infringement.
George Clinton is currently engaged in major court cases that could critically impact the future of copyright laws for the entire music industry, as well as motion pictures and related media.
